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Earth Science

Hit Hard by High Energy Costs, Hawaii Looks To the Sun (nytimes.com) 115

Nearly a third of Hawaii's single-family houses have rooftop solar panels -- more than twice the percentage in California -- and officials expect many more homes to add panels and batteries in the coming years. From a report: Even before energy prices surged globally this year, homeowners, elected leaders and energy executives in Hawaii had decided that rooftop solar panels were one of the best ways to meet demand for energy and tame the state's high power costs. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has only strengthened the state's embrace of renewable energy. Electricity rates in Hawaii jumped 34 percent in April from a year earlier because many of its power plants burn oil, about a third of which came from Russia last year.

While Hawaii faces unique challenges, the state's reliance on solar carries lessons for other states and countries looking to fight climate change and bring down energy costs. The state has increased the use of renewable energy in large part by getting electric utilities to accept rooftop solar rather than fight it, as energy companies in California, Florida and other states have been doing. "In Hawaii, we've come to the recognition that rooftop solar is going to be an important part of our grid, has to be part of our grid," said Shelee Kimura, president and chief executive of Hawaiian Electric Company, the state's largest power provider. "Some people think we're crazy. Some people think we're pretty amazing."

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Hit Hard by High Energy Costs, Hawaii Looks To the Sun

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  • I hear there's real ... um disagreements between consumers and the utility about people wanting to use solar panels when the sun shines and utility power when it doesn't. And utilities not offering pricing friendly to solar. I wonder what the numbers are for people actually installing a lot of storage and going fully off grid. I'd like to hear of large storage projects to store all that sunshine.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )
      Utilities on Hawaii are basically morons. Hawaii is _perfect_ for solar energy, because most of the existing power generation is dispatchable. It can be scaled up and down within minutes on demand. Simply augmenting the existing generation with utility-scale solar will result in tons of fuel savings. Kauai did just that.

      But other utilities had been dragging their feet for a long time, and only recently started working on really integrating solar into the grid design. Sigh.
      • But the sun is so far away. They have all that free energy under their feet that runs 24/7

        • by algaeman ( 600564 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @12:37AM (#62578726)
          Unfortunately that free energy sometimes bubbles up to the surface. The geothermal plant in Puna was shut down for a couple years when the hole to the center of the earth started filling up with fresh rock.
        • Geothermal is on the Big Island.

          80% of the population lives on Oahu, 250 km away.

          There are no power interconnects between the islands.

          • Has building transmission lines between them ever been considered? Would that be a huge engineering challenge? (I presume they would be run underwater.) Geothermal is WAY cool, but only if you can get it to where it needs to go.
            • There are some political issues there that might be impossible to overcome. A well-earned distrust of white people and Oahu by native Hawaiians makes it an uphill battle.

              But, even the island of Hawai'i doesn't have a grid that covers the full island. That would likely be a better starting point.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        This is what happens when you don't have long term planning, only short term profit chasing. If large solar and wind farms had been years ago, Hawaii would be in a good position to insulate itself from fossil fuel price rises now.

        • There has been solar and wind on the islands for a long time. Some offshore wind is likely needed, but I wouldn't want to be the one proposing it!! What is changing is the coal-fired plant on Oahu is shutting down in September, so there is a need to add batteries for the 5-9PM period, and with additional batteries the grid can easily support more solar.

    • by GFS666 ( 6452674 ) on Monday May 30, 2022 @11:41PM (#62578668)

      I hear there's real ... um disagreements between consumers and the utility about people wanting to use solar panels when the sun shines and utility power when it doesn't. And utilities not offering pricing friendly to solar. I wonder what the numbers are for people actually installing a lot of storage and going fully off grid. I'd like to hear of large storage projects to store all that sunshine.

      You are totally correct Sir. Hawaii was the first state where the instabilities of a Grid Tie only solar panel system first became apparent. In fact, in 2015 they stopped allowing new grid tie systems onto the grid ( https://blogs.scientificameric... [scientificamerican.com] ). I don't know if that's still true but it would surprise me if it wasn't. Basically, grid tie solar panel systems inherently add instability to an electrical grid. If there are not a lot of systems on the grid, your fine. As the number of grid tie systems increase, the instabilities can increase so that at some point you can't have a stable grid. The solution of course is storage.

      Please note that I am totally for Solar Power and PV systems. It's just we need to really start requiring storage for new systems or we are going to start seeing huge grid problems in the near future.

      • Net metering is no longer allowed to Helco. Old systems are grandfathered in, but new systems cannot feed into the grid. My parents added additional panels this year when my dad bought an electric car, and the new system is "use it or lose it". So, the power draws from the new panels first, then the original panels, and any excess from the old panels goes to credit on their bill. It is pretty rare that they end up losing any power, but it does happen on sunny days when nobody is in the house and the car
      • Basically, grid tie solar panel systems inherently add instability to an electrical grid. If there are not a lot of systems on the grid, your fine. As the number of grid tie systems increase, the instabilities can increase so that at some point you can't have a stable grid.

        That's at least in a large part a problem of the wrong controllers / configuration. The inverter attached to the solar panels could be set up to limit power either according to supply voltage or, with a network connection, according to instructions from the grid. Many home systems will be set up to just try to deliver whatever power they have, almost no matter what (up to safety limits rather than oversupply limits). The first case, correctly configured, should always add to grid stability.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Your own link states that this is a problem specific to Hawaii, because Hawaii doesn't have an interconnected grid that it can use to send excess power elsewhere. It mentions that, for example, California and Germany don't have that problem.

        • by Ichijo ( 607641 )
          Hawaii needs submarine power cables linking the islands together into one grid. Geographic distribution makes intermittent sources more stable.
          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Yes. Probably would make some people less rich in the short term, so this was not done.

            • Underseas cables in a geologically active area. What could possibly go wrong.

              • Well, in theory you could float the cable... they should get the engineering done just in time for fusion power. ;)

                But seriously, submerged floating tunnel [wikipedia.org] demos have proven the concept is viable. The same technology used for the dynamic cables between offshore wind generators and the submerged cables that carry their output can be used for the cables.

              • by gweihir ( 88907 )

                A lot can go wrong with undersea cables. The first one survived less than a day, as far as I remember. That is why you ask experts to do it.

                Incidentally, Hawaii _has_ undersea cables for its internet connections, so the idea is in no way outlandish.

                • An undersea data cable 7800 km long is feasible. An undersea power cable of that length will have massive losses. You'd be better of diverting the excess power to an electrolysis plant on Hawaii. Using hydrogen as power storage is pretty inefficient, but in this case it's less inefficient than tying Hawaii's grid to California.
                  Or are you saying Hawaii's islands are not interconnected?

      • They did an irresponsible thing when they first rolled out solar. My house has 7kW(AC) of PV, and the transformer supplying me and ~25 of my neighbors is only 25kVA. The problem is they did not pivot soon enough to address these shortfalls so you have a lot of transformers that are failing due to overload. (I usually export ~5kW for 4 hours per day.)

        But, they don't create any incentives for people like me to be part of the solution now, which boxe in new people who want to add solar as prices have droppe

    • by Chas ( 5144 )

      Also, last I checked, wasn't Hawaii's utility under water due to rooftop solar?
      To the point where they were withholding approvals for new installations because they were losing money hand over fist?

    • The problem is when ever a business has to change its business model.
      Other than changing their company business model to accommodate, the new conditions of the times, they will often just go on a rant trying to give law suits to ever they can, lobby politicians, and find ways to fleece the customers and say it isn't their fault that prices have risen.

      Being that so much power is generated at homes, the power companies business model has changed. They need to slow their power generation business, but find wa

      • Saying Tesla is disrupting the car market is giving a little to much credit. They are likely the first electric car the typical person thinks of, but they barely sell any cars compared to everyone else.

        Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they were able to setup a business that initially was able to cash in on government subsidies to push electric cars. Now they have enough momentum that even without getting the subsidies (they used all the car ones up) they are still able to be profitable.

        In another year or two, I

    • by torkus ( 1133985 )

      Yes but...

      Unlike mainland US (and elsewhere) there isn't a large interconnected baseload grid. Also, since the bulk of their generation comes from burning oil there's a direct offset to that from solar power. So even if solar only works during the day - which happily coincides with peak demand - there is still a very tangible reduction in high-cost oil generation plant demand. Longer term, yes, there might come a time where the overnight demand dictates a minimum amount of baseload generation but that's

    • A few years back, the grid operators in Hawaii were basically not issuing any more net metering permits because they said there was too much solar already (read: we don't get to sell nearly as much energy as we want to) so larger companies and buildings started building their own microgrids with on-site storage instead.

      Sounds like maybe in the few years between when that was happening and now, that someone came to their senses, either on their own, or by government choke-hold.

      • It's overall better for the individuals to have battery+solar and just use the grid as the backup. Technology keeps getting better and older technology does fall away. Maybe a grid just doesn't make sense for islanders, especially given the cost of solar+batteries now.

        • There are some situations where on-site battery storage isn't going to be cost effective due to the electrical design of the structure, and limitations of currently available hardware. For example, I'm having solar installed on my house this month, and I'd love to have battery backup with it, but I would have had to install FOUR of Tesla's Powerwall modules to get it done, because the house has 2 x 200A main panels that each have their own line off the meter. They don't have a piece of hardware that has t

    • This objection arises all the time. But the heaviest use of electricity is during the day, when the sun does shine. Solar at the moment is NOT intended to be a 100% replacement for all other electricity sources. I think the fossil fuel industry pushes this line all the time, making people hesitant to try solar, and I wish people would stop repeating it because it's so obviously irrelevant. Yes, storage is very useful but that does not mean people need to wait 25-50 years for that technology to advance befo

      • For Hawaii, loads are not dominated by air conditioning (especially during the day). The peak demand is dinner time.

  • Having a third of single-family houses with rooftop solar in the state is quite an impressive achievement. Their next goal should be to increase adoption to 2/3rd, and have utilities focus on wind power. That may not completely free them from their need to burn oil, but it should get them pretty darn close.
    • Hawaii has enough height differences to be able to store excess power by pumping up water. And it does not have a shortage of water either.
  • pipe some of that lava into the furnace

  • In the Netherlands we have similar numbers of solar panels, but if it is even halfway sunny, the voltage on the net increases too much, and when it crosses the 253 Volt barrier, the panels turn off (or rather, the convertor no longer passes the electricity unto the net).

    In large parts of the country it is no longer even allowed to build a solar farm (30+ panels) because there is simply no infrastructure to transport the electricity away.
    How does Hawaii solve this issue?
    Also in the light of ever increasi
    • In large parts of the country it is no longer even allowed to build a solar farm (30+ panels) because there is simply no infrastructure to transport the electricity away.
      How does Hawaii solve this issue?

      Better infrastructure...?

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      The solution is simple. Utilities can install grid scale batteries. With excess power they can charge the batteries during the day and discharge at night. Much more efficient (though less resilient) than having a battery with each panel. BTW doesnt have to be literally batteries, can be capacitors, molten salt, pumped water storage all of which are "batteries" in the sense they store energy.
      • Ayup, those schtoopidt utilities who don't know the first thing about energy, transmission and storage...
        • by ghoul ( 157158 )
          Oh they know. But they have no incentive to save money. They are guaranteed 10% on top of what they spend so the more they spend , the more they make.
        • by radja ( 58949 )

          They know even more about making money. Energy, transmission and storage are secondary. These problems with solar are not new, they were known from the start. The utilities have been too slow to keep infrastructure up to date.

        • You make jokes, but the intended audience isn't a utility company; it's the amazingly ignorant people that constantly come into the comments section of articles like these and post "factual" statements that aren't even remotely true.

          Energy companies know all about these solutions, they just don't install them because it's easier and cheaper to get a pack of bum politicians re-elected to hold the regulatory line for your and protect your margins without building anything at all.

      • The ARES company in the US working on that, by riding heavy carts uphill.
        Norway has a lot of pumped hydro storage, which is the greatest way of gravitational storage of energy available, and to follow your nomenclature, the biggest batteries on the planet. They cause electricity in the north of the country to be so cheap that it can be considered effectively free.
        • Norway has hydro, but none of it is "pumped". It's all rainfall or snowmelt. The reason it cheap in the north is underdeveloped infrastructure. No way to get that power to where it's desperately needed.
          • by Wimmie ( 446910 )

            Incorrect, Norway has pumped hydro. Google it !
            There is a 700MW interconnected between The Netherlands and Norway and 1400MW interconnect between the UK and Norway.
            Find out where it is used for!

            • Ok, as the poster below pointed out, they do exist, barely. I stand corrected. They don't contribute that much though, The undersea cables would exist regardless of any pumped storage in Norway.
          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            Are you talking about these "non existing" pumped hydro storage plants in Norway? https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073... [mdpi.com]
            Sure, it is only 1400 MW, but that is not nothing.

            • Ok, i did not know that. I took time to look at the article you linked. 10 out of 1600 Norwegian hydropower plants are pumped, providing slightly more than 1% of total power production. Hardly any new such plants have been built since 1991. So not exactly non-existing, just very close.
              • by gweihir ( 88907 )

                Fair enough. The total is more like 10% pumped storage though as they seem to have an average of 15GW power consumption. Storage does, of course, not produce power and hence needs to be calculated differently.

                But when searching for this I also found that they could expand that drastically. It makes no sense for Norway to do this for themselves, as they have 95% of the total electricity generation as hydro at about 2x the capacity they need themselves. Probably needs a few more HVDC lines to get the power t

      • Better to have home batteries if you can afford them, they can then reduce their reliance on the grid and reduce stress on the grid
    • by ukoda ( 537183 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @03:24AM (#62578914) Homepage
      Unless my car is below 30% charge I don't bother automatically charging it as 30% still gives me plenty of range. Once I have surplus solar output then I charge the car. It is only after both the house battery and the car batteries are fully charged do I feed power to the grid. I have only charged my car once from the grid since putting in solar panels, even now in the peak of winter where my solar output is a faction of the summer amount I am basically running the car 100% on solar along it part of the house's needs. In summer I can run both the car and house close 100% of the time from solar with some surplus going to the grid.

      The key to grid issues is to try and use as much power as possible locally, so house batteries so make a big difference to how effect solar is on individual basis.
    • In large parts of the country it is no longer even allowed to build a solar farm (30+ panels) because there is simply no infrastructure to transport the electricity away.
      How does Hawaii solve this issue?

      Hawaii would have to solve the problem with a very expensive cable, or with more storage of some kind. Maybe hydrogen actually makes sense there, for example.

      A better question is why your country, which has two adjacent countries, doesn't have better connections to your neighbors so that you can export your excess. It's not like you're butted up against undeveloped nations, either.

      • For Hawaii, a single Megapack at each of the residential area substations would likely do enough to offset transmission requirements. But the problem isn't really on the transmission side, it is on the residential transformers being grossly undersized for solar.

  • It's an island.
  • . . . queue the corruption, and ensuing scandal.

    All it would take is legislation that mandated any home sale after year X (let's say 10 years in the future) can only take place with a rooftop solar + battery installation. Non-compliant homes would pay a punitive fee to the state.

    Something similar was done to get people off oil for heating (in many places). Worked a treat then, will work the same now.

  • They're practically a test case for geothermal energy.

    • Because the sun continues to hit a very large portion of land mass without filling your generating infrastructure with fresh rock.

  • Looking to the sun for answers isn't going to get them anywhere. They will need an oracle to find what they need.

An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you really care to know.

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